Ask Design Mom: Shopping as an Expat

June 6, 2011

Question:How are you getting your Warby Parkers shipped to France? On their site, they write that they only ship within the U.S. I’m in Canada, and as so often is the case, apparently out of luck in trying out this company. — Anna

Answer:Great question, Anna! I have a few different options. 1) I have stuff shipped to my mom who lives in Utah, and then she ships it on to me. 2) I have stuff shipped to Melanie, who watches the P.O. Box I left behind in Colorado. Then she ships it on to me. 3) If I have a friend or relative coming to France for a visit, I have stuff shipped to them and then they bring it to France in their suitcase. 4) When I knew I was going to be in the U.S. for Mom 2.0, I had a few things shipped to my hotel in New Orleans. Like the shoes pictured here. : )

Don’t have those sorts of options available? No stress. Natasha told me about My US and I think it’s genius. You sign up with them for an annual fee and they give you a U.S. shipping address. You can shop from any U.S. stores you like and have the products shipped to your assigned address — then My US forwards the packages on to you wherever you live in the world. I haven’t tried this, but it sounds smart and costs about what I pay for my P.O. Box.

How about you Dear Readers? Have you ever tried a service like this? Do you have one you would recommend?

Well…what can we all ‘European’ moms say? A huge thank you to Gabrielle and Natasha! This is certainly the smartest url for all of us who would just love to have no online shopping limitations… Never again envious of us mommies! Merci bien! Grazie!!

Great info about My US. My sister currently lives in Germany and is moving to Korea this summer. She often uses similar methods to you to get her US purchases to her but of course there are times that service would be a huge help. Can’t wait to pass it on.

I’m an American living in Vancouver, Canada and sorely miss the on-line shopping options in the States. If Anna lives near the US border, she can have packages shipped to a nearby US city and go down and pick up. There are plenty of shipping stores that will receive and hold your packages for a fee. I drive to Point Roberts, WA or Bellingham, WA every few months for package pick up and a Target fix.

I live in Dubai, and have stuffed shipped from US and UK brands through Shop & Ship. (No, I’m not that big a shopaholic, I promise it’s common practice among we expats here :D)

So Shop & Ship is a service from Aramex that gives you two P O boxes, one in UK and the other in US (I believe they’ve just started China too). I buy stuff online, get it shipped to either if the addresses depending on store and once it arrives in the P O box, it gets shipped to me in Dubai! Easy peasy. Works great for me because everything in Dubai is so much more expensive than it is in the US/Europe. And more variety :)

One thing I’ve learned over the last few years in Amsterdam is that expats abroad should watch out for are the secret taxes. On many occasions when I’ve ordered items or had friends ship me things from the US over to Amsterdam, customs will add a tax fee inorder to receive the package. Once, they even charged me for a box of my own personal items from home, used clothes and the like. I’m not sure if this is just in the Netherlands but it’s quite a surprising nuisance so you might want to check the customs laws where ever you’re living abroad. Happy shopping!

Hi Gabrielle,
I just signed up last month to usabox.com. I intend to use it to receive magazine subscriptions (much cheaper than buying in newsstands here in Brazil). I could receive all kinds of goods, but unfrotunately as someone pointed out above, custom fees would double the goods price.
I’ll start receiving my parcels in a month. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Fernanda

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My name is Gabrielle Blair. I'm a designer and mother of six. After 2 1/2 years in France, we just bought a home in Oakland, California. We call it The Treehouse. I post on where design and motherhood intersect.

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